Most Australians have never heard of – let alone, seen – a member of the species pictured above.
Quelea Quelea – the Red-billed Quelea – is, however, almost certainly the most abundant bird on “our” planet!
It is a significant agricultural pest. Sometimes in flocks of millions, billowing in the sky like smoke…
The italicised quotation is from a particularly excellent, recently published tome on Southern Africa’s birdlife.
(Purchase of same is meant to provide access to the associated, apparently-superb Bird Scan App. Currently, the App is not in fact available in Australia. When and if this is remedied, I will identify and wholeheartedly recommend the publication. If it is not fixed, I will then identify the publication and offer a “buyer, beware – you are not getting what you are paying for” alert to those who reside outside Southern Africa)
Photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken in Etosha National Park at 8.47 am on 08 November 2022.
I suggest you zoom in on/enlarge the image, then have a good look around.
The photo shows a very small portion of the relevant flock, and this portion was then the flock’s least dense part.
I think there are rather fewer than one thousand birds within the image.
A typical adult Red-billed Quelea weighs around 18 grams.
If I were to place an adult male Kori Bustard (see #7 in this Namibia single-image series) in one pan of a (necessarily, huge) set of balancing scales, the other pan would come into balance only after I had placed circa one thousand adult Red-billed Quelea in it!